


from locked to open ends

by shirothehero (dirkharley)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:41:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26664622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirkharley/pseuds/shirothehero
Summary: When Shiro died, everything changed.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 48
Collections: Sheith Prompt Party 2020





	from locked to open ends

**Author's Note:**

> this started as a prompt fill but quickly became one of the many shiro-centric fics that live rent-free in my head, because i love him
> 
> (title is from [this song](https://youtu.be/5n2YFdSfW7w))

Shiro had always worn his heart on his sleeve.

When the Kerberos mission went south, his first instinct had been to talk through it. The Garrison hadn't done much by way of training for a first-contact scenario - no one expected them to meet anything _sentient_ on an ice sampling mission - but, put on the spot, he delved into childhood memories of sci-fi shows and comic books for the right words to say.

He'd really thought "we come in peace" would work - that there had been some big misunderstanding, and with a few simple words, they would be let go.

After getting knocked out cold enough times, Shiro started keeping his thoughts to himself. He quickly learned that the more he said, the more ammunition his captors would have. The Galra were always listening, always _learning,_ and after a while, there was no one left to talk to, anyway.

It didn't take long until nothing but survival instinct showed on the surface and the man known as Takashi Shirogane regressed, with the Champion emerging in his place. This new version of himself was as silent and stony-faced as he was ruthless, but - it had worked. Shiro fought, and won, and _survived,_ long enough to escape more or less in once piece.

Despite Earth having been the last place he'd really felt _himself,_ when he crashed, things were far from familiar. There'd hardly been time to gather his bearings. One moment he was strapped down in a makeshift Garrison quarantine, the next, waking up surrounded by a handful of hazily familiar faces, and - Keith.

He'd spared a few short words to excuse himself from so many prying eyes, and his exit was met with a wide berth. Stepping out into a desert sunrise was a relief - that, at least, hadn't seemed to change. Nor had the feeling of breathing real, dusty desert air, something he didn't think he'd ever taste again.

He should have expected Keith would be right behind him. That made for another constant, then.

The others stayed inside, which was probably for the best. Shiro hardly felt up for the barrage of questions he was sure to get - it wasn't every day you saw a presumed dead man come back to life, and in their shoes, he was sure he would have been just as curious. Or, at least, the Shiro of a year ago would have been.

Keith's hand on his shoulder should have made him jump, but something about the scene in front of them had him at ease, so he let himself relax into it. When Keith gently asked where he'd been, Shiro tried to answer honestly - he really did. If anyone deserved to know...

But even a few sentences was the most candid conversation Shiro had had in a _year,_ hardly enough to start explaining what all had happened. Keith had been there nearly the second he'd crashed, though. Always right behind him, even after all this time.

In a word, it was... unbelievable.

Shiro let himself lower his guard long enough to ask _how._

And then, in the blink of an eye, they’d found the Blue Lion, and Arus, and the Alteans, and Voltron. Allura declared Shiro their leader, and that was that.

Thrust into an intergalactic war, it was clear that the team - _his_ team - were _young_. More than anything, Shiro wanted to protect them. He needed to, in the way he hadn't been able to protect his crew. Not just from the Empire, or the loss and pain of war, but from the greatest enemy he'd faced head-on: change.

So Shiro kept going with grit teeth, head held high and laser focused on each task ahead. Right up until the moment they were ready to end ten thousand years of war for good.

* * *

When he died, everything had changed. It'd _had_ to. 

Death brought a certain clarity with it. The man who'd died was forged in the flames of war. Once he was about as far from that war as possible, Shiro realized he had no reason to keep pretending that was who he wanted to be.

So he developed a new routine. Physical training had kept him grounded through the worst times of his life, even before the Arena. For all the good it did his incorporeal form, it still made him feel better to keep it up.

But when he wasn't doing that, he spoke. To Black, to himself, or to the nothingness - where he directed it didn’t matter. Just that he kept doing it. And he held nothing back.

The first time he was able to see outside the astral plane was when Keith stepped in to pilot Black for the first time.

The next was when he'd brought the clone home.

After that, he saw outside in glimpses. It was still hard to tell how much time was passing, but in those snapshots, he saw the fight continue on. They found the Holts safe and sound, and he could have wept. Keith left, and he did.

He couldn't blame anyone for not knowing. The clone acted the same way he would have, if he hadn't died. He'd still tried to warn them, but the man who shared his face and his learned ruthlessness got the upper hand.

Shiro had spent a lot of his time in the astral plane wondering whether he'd been stuck there or _saved_.

But in the end, he knew it took both him and Black to catch them as they fell.

* * *

Shiro starts to feel human again, but it comes in waves.

A lot of his time is spent sleeping. His mind is as exhausted as this body, maybe even more so. Being dead wasn't like being asleep - it felt a lot more like being awake for an immeasurable amount of time. Or maybe that was just the cosmic limbo talking. Either way, he had a lot of catching up to do.

When Shiro wakes up, he usually can’t move right away. After a few panicked starts, he got used to it as a consequence of the almost-but-not-quite-familiar body, but it still takes a few minutes for him to escape the sleep paralysis long enough to either drift off again or be up for the day.

This time, it happens in the middle of the sleep cycle, so he's hoping it won't be the latter. He's not much use keeping watch while he's like this.

He takes a deep breath and starts making a mental list of what he can feel. The thin sheet beneath him. Recycled air blowing lightly through the vent near his legs. It’s cold. He’s cold, but not shivering. His arm - or lack thereof - aches.

He's uncomfortable, but grateful for the feeling.

The dim glow of Black’s cockpit leaking under the door illuminates the barest amount, just enough to see the floor by, but not much else.

Lacking anything to look at, Shiro starts the repetition: I'm awake. Alive. Cold. Tired.

Awake, alive.

Cold.

He hears shifting from the cot next to him, and a nearly inaudible mumble. Keith, it must be. He was still awake when Shiro was last conscious, but who knows how long ago that was. 

God, but he’s tired.

And cold.

He hopes sleep will take him. Just for a little longer.

-

When Shiro stirs again, the soft quilt from Keith's bed is around his own shoulders, and he can't immediately see anyone around, but the lights are still low.

His grounding ritual leads him to realize he's thirsty, so he decides to get up for some water before trying a third round of sleep.

He forgets to account for his new centre of balance.

Shiro hits the floor with a thud and immediately, Keith has raised the lights and crouched next to him, hands skittering up and down to check for injury.

“Keith,” he says, or he _thinks_ he says, but there’s no response. He tries again, his voice scratchy from disuse.

“Keith.” More firmly this time. Dark, wide eyes flick up to find his.

“Are you hurt?” Keith asks, his voice just a whisper. Trying to keep the calm quiet of the night cycle intact.

_Not that landing unceremoniously on the floor helped with that,_ Shiro thinks. Keith's frown deepens almost imperceptibly. Shiro figures he should probably respond.

“I'm okay,” he says, doing his best to put on a smile. With his luck, it probably appears more like a grimace. But it’ll have to do.

“Really, nothing bruised but my pride. I’m sorry I woke you.”

Shiro makes to sit up, wobbling slightly. Keith is there to right him, no fuss.

“It’s alright, I was still awake. Bad dreams, you know how it is.”

Boy does he ever.

Keith waits until he's laid back onto his bed before settling onto his own, facing him.

In the silence that persists between them, Shiro tries not to dwell on the way Keith’s face moves differently now, skin pulled taut around his scar.

A scar he didn’t have the last time Shiro was alive. A scar that marks not only his face but their reunion, a moment now burned into Shiro's mind as much as Keith's flesh.

Shiro freezes.

What is he doing here? What is Keith doing so _close_ to him? He's hurt him, he tried to _kill_ him, and Keith - is still here, but why, when he could - he _should_ \- be anywhere else?

“Anywhere else isn’t good enough,” Keith answers simply.

It's at odds with the intense look in his eyes, and Shiro wonders just how much of that he said out loud.

But he's exhausted, suddenly, and knows he'll have drifted off again before he can think of a way to respond.

It's right on the edge of sleep that he thinks he hears it, but he can't be sure.

“Anywhere else isn’t with you.”

* * *

Making speeches has never been on his top ten list of favourite activities, but Shiro's _good_ at them, is the thing. People seem to listen to what he has to say (even when he _isn't_ wearing a skin tight shirt, thank you very much).

This one is no exception, though the whole affair takes up far more of his day than he'd like. Atlas pings in the back of his mind when he's halfway through it, and he almost ignores her, but for the realization that almost everyone from the ship is _here_ , save for those in the medical bay.

It's an emotional ceremony, which he hopes excuses the stutter in his words as he thinks what that might _mean_.

As soon as he's finished, he excuses himself as politely as possible to slip away before the applause has even died down. It had taken every ounce of decorum he had in him to see it through to the end, but - as soon as he's out of sight, he _sprints_.

After the battle, most of the paladins were in serious condition, but it was Keith who had been the most touch-and-go.

Shiro arrives to see Krolia has abandoned her usual post outside Keith's room, but isn't surprised to find her inside. The TV is on, broadcasting the end of the ceremony he'd just all but fled. He can't find it in himself to feel too bad about that, though, seeing Keith sitting upright for the first time in a week.

After a few moments of Shiro standing silent in the doorway, Krolia stands, giving her son a tight hug before turning to leave. Her face is as unreadable as ever, but Shiro thinks her shoulders look relieved. She offers him a nod before leaving, Kolivan and Kosmo in tow.

Shiro sits in the spot she vacated, his hand a breath away from Keith's own. He wants, so badly, to touch him and have it mean something different than it always had - but that particular ache has long become familiar. His eyes flick up from where his fingers wait, hesitant, and his gaze instead roams over the face before him.

Keith is still banged up from the fall, a bandage wrapped around his head and lip split in three places. But underneath it all, he's still Keith.

For the first time, Shiro lets himself really _look._

His features are stronger, now, than they used to be, but his eyes are no less fierce. Tamer, maybe, but still haloed by his unruly mane of hair.

Keith is a wonder. He’s everything that the universe could offer Shiro and has been, for so long now, all that he could possibly _want,_ too.

_How are you real,_ he thinks.

Keith's smile is rueful. “You know, I’ve been asking myself the same thing for a long time.”

Shiro feels more than hears his own sharp intake of breath when he realizes - oh. He'd said that out loud. Because of _course_ he had, because he’d gotten used to saying _everything_ out loud, and even now, it was a hard habit to kick.

“But I am real, Shiro,” Keith continues, and despite the IV draped over his arm, reaches his hand out to close the distance between them.

“I'm real, and so are you. And we’re here, you and me. And everyone. We’re here, and we’re alive.”

As he says that last word, the fiercely determined expression on his face falters, his voice cracks just a hair -

“Shiro. You’re real. You’re here. You’re _alive,_ ” Keith says, and in that moment it's hard to tell who it is he's trying to convince.

Then with a sudden show of strength definitely unbefitting of a man who just woke up from a coma, he tugs Shiro close and wraps his arms firmly around him.

“Keith,” he says, and he waits for the hum of recognition before he continues because he needs to be sure of it this time.

“You’re amazing. You’ve _been_ amazing. I... literally would not be here without you. But even more than that. I wouldn’t be who I am without you.”

Keith's hands tighten in his coat, and he tucks his head into the crook of his neck. It's all the motivation Shiro needs to keep going.

“All along, you were holding onto a piece of me that I thought might have been lost for good. I’m sorry it took so long for me to say this, really say it without it being a half formed thought, or just scratching the surface. You said it best, a long time ago: if it wasn’t for you, my life would have been a lot different. But the thing is, if it wasn’t for you... my life wouldn’t have _been_ at all."

Tears have started welling in the corners of Shiro's eyes, but he's determined to see this through to the end before he lets them flow. 

"After I died, I spent a lot of time with my thoughts. And a lot of them were about _you._ How even if I’d never see you again, you were still out there being the amazing person I always knew you would be. But I’m so glad I was able to come back to you. That you brought me back to you.”

He licks his lips, like he's biding for time. But it's not something he wants to delay. Not anymore.

“Keith, I - "

Keith cuts him off by dragging Shiro's mouth onto his own, and. They're kissing. The rough terrain of Keith's lips drag, pressure unyielding, but Shiro finds himself running his tongue against them anyway. It's over nearly as soon as it started, but Keith doesn't pull away. His eyes are nearly closed, lashes fanned against his cheeks.

“I love you, too," he murmurs against Shiro's mouth.

He wonders out loud if he'd said it before he'd realized again, gotten ahead of himself, or -

"No," Keith interrupts. "I just knew."

He smiles, then, one of the widest grins Shiro has ever seen on his face.

"But I wouldn't mind hearing it, either."

Shiro can't help but match his grin before pulling him close again for a kiss that ends in shared, soft laughter.

And then, he gathers this beautiful, impossible man in his arms and tells him, once for each kiss against his hairline, his mouth, his cheek: _I love you, to the stars and back again._

**Author's Note:**

> ...and then season 8 didn't happen, because _fuck_ season 8
> 
> this was written for the Sheith Prompt Party 2020, for the following prompt:
> 
> "In the astral plane, Shiro speaks his thoughts aloud just to hear the sound of his own voice. When he gets out, Shiro forgets to filter his thoughts before speaking."
> 
> i hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it! 💙
> 
> and if you like, you can come say hi on [twitter](http://twitter.com/shlrothehero)! 💙


End file.
